Why Hitting $1 Million in Sales Felt Like Nothing

Sean Weisbrot: Why don't you just real quick say what your business is and if you don't mind saying how much the business does each year?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yep, sure. So I have multiple businesses, but, for this we'll focus on PCS. initially founded the company in 2000. I was in college at Rowing University, east Coast, Southern New Jersey, United States.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And, we started as a residential IT service provider. Basically, your door to door computer repair person, virus cleaner, and all that. fast forward 22 years later. We have 200 team members and we work nationally and internationally helping businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, either run their day-to-day technology or recover from a ransomware attack from the hackers.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So, projected revenues this year are around 27, 20, 8 million. Last year closed around the 24 20 5 million mark.

Sean Weisbrot: Nice. Congrats. And I, I was mentioning before we started recording that you, I think last time we spoke you had about 50 people less.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah, probably about 50 people less. And, and the crazy thing is over the last three weeks we hired an additional 13 team members.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And that list is growing. A lot of people have been talking about the job market and it's definitely tougher for us. Some reason over the past couple weeks. Our work is coming in like a flood, so we need the team.

Sean Weisbrot: What made you excited about starting this business and what keeps you excited about this business?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Funny, I could tell you what got me excited and what keeps me excited, and then I'll share a conversation from, from literally an hour ago, I said to my COO, this excites me.

Anthony Mongeluzo: What excited me the first time was, you look at all these big logos, right? You look at Geek Squad and you look at Dell and you always say, oh, that's so insurmountable, right? I. Then what happens is you actually see their work product. And the way that I started my business was a local repair company called the Budget.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'm saying their name 'cause they're out of business. They've been out of business for a long time. Charged my next door neighbor an exuberant amount of money back in, 99, 2000. It was, they charged like 500 bucks. And guess what? They did not fix the problem. My neighbor literally called my parents and said, Hey, we, we know your son's good at computers.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Can he take a look? No training, no experience, no certification. I fixed that thing in like 15, 20 minutes, and what that meant to me was I could do this. I could go out there and make it happen. So the thing that excited me was I could make a lot more money than I was making, right? I was making 10 bucks an hour at the supermarket.

Anthony Mongeluzo: My competitor was charging $120 an hour. For me, 40 bucks an hour seemed great. So that's what I charged. So I was excited for me financially that I could do a lot better. I could make it in one hour, four hours now. And secondly, I just, I just thought I could cut through a lot of red tape. I cut through a lot of nonsense.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And, I think that's why this business model has been successful. Now, the thing that keeps me excited, we have a lot of work coming in right now, remediation and incident response. And what that basically is as a company gets hacked and they're completely down, well getting, getting the team and pulling those pieces in place to figure out how's the best way we could deliver this service to our client while also not burning out our people.

Anthony Mongeluzo: so that stuff, I guess it's try, it's really trying to crack the code, right? Figuring out the puzzle. I think that's something that's always gonna excite me.

Sean Weisbrot: Did you have any fears about starting the business? And do you have any fears? Do you have any fears that persist today?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah, every day right? You worry about how you're gonna perform on reputation, so as one of my clients is gonna get bought, so yeah, when I started the business, I think I had less fear. Then I did now even, even with all the people that I do have, right? So the interesting thing is, I remember people saying, Hey, once you hit five years in business, you know that fear is gonna go away.

Anthony Mongeluzo: You're gonna feel so good. Hit five years. And it was like, eh, still a little scared. Then they said, no, no, no. The real number is 10 years. Because like 1% of businesses actually make it 10 years. I'm 22, 22 years in and I'm still running fast. And I like to quote a great line from Rocky Balboa.

Anthony Mongeluzo: His kid asked him, he is like, Hey daddy, are you scared? And obviously the Philly brawler and boxing champion in the movies. And he is like, oh yeah, I always run a little faster when I'm scared. So I think fear is a good motivator.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. Was there. Ever a time that you, or have you ever regretted starting this business?

Anthony Mongeluzo: No, I don't think there's ever been a regret. I think there's, like every business owner goes through, right? There's moments of pain, there's moments of fear, and there's definitely moments of regret. For instance, six years ago I bought the building that we reside in as our headquarters, and I have some tenants and things of that nature.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And a year or so in the building, building ownership, I had a massive flood. there was a storm, the emergency drains, everything got filled up. I'm lucky the roof didn't collapse. It was basically a pool up there. And as I sat in the main entrance area and I just saw drip. what did I do? You know? And again, that was a moment of regret for an hour or two, and then it's like, okay, guess what? We gotta get up. We gotta. So I think every business owner has that moment. but I think if you really enjoy what you do and you have a good team that far, far exceeds those expectations of any regret that you'd have.

Sean Weisbrot: Have you ever thought about stopping this business at any time?

Anthony Mongeluzo: No. I've grown a hundredpercent. 110% growth. We just added, some, an office in Boston. We just had an office in Red Bank, New Jersey. So that's now our third office in New Jersey. We started that office in October.

Anthony Mongeluzo: We planned on starting that office two years ago. But apparently there was some kind of virus internationally or something that slowed us down for a little bit. And, we have four people in that office now. So for me it's one mindset. It's, it's growing.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It's either you're growing or you're dying and we don't want to die.

Sean Weisbrot: What drives you?

Anthony Mongeluzo: On a daily basis, there's a few things that drive me and it. they change on a daily basis, yet they probably stay the same on some levels. So, one, I absolutely love the people I work with. And one of the things you'll hear me say a lot is longevity. I have so many people that I've worked with for over 10 years.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I have a half dozen now, probably even more than a half dozen, probably closer to 10. That's been with me for more than 15 years. So, watching them grow, watching the company grow, being able to do more. I mean, that, that's a definite motivator. spreading our Kool-Aid across the country, that's a motivator.

Anthony Mongeluzo: and then seeing what we've accomplished as a team, right. probably three or four weeks ago, one of the biggest companies out there in, in, in the world and what we do, definitely the gold standard of it. Recovery forensics, Kroll issued a press release with us jointly about how we're teaming up with them to tackle ransomware globally.

Anthony Mongeluzo: That's something special to be able to do that, to go, to go from a small bedroom in your parents' house to now help, help fight the bad guys with one of the, one of the best. So, I mean, all those things and, it's almost like what Tom Brady would say. Right? What, what's your favorite ring?

Anthony Mongeluzo: I. And the answer is the next one, right? So why I'm excited about those accomplishments. What, what drives me more is, what's next? What are we gonna do next? How are we gonna, how are we gonna flip the script? How are we gonna change the game?

Sean Weisbrot: What has been the hardest decision you've had to make so far?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Couple hard decisions. one, definitely buying the building. didn't have the cash flow or really the, really, the, the, the, reserves, I should say, but turned out to be a great decision. To do that. and then always, even after all these years, even letting go of team members that necessarily aren't pulling your weight.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So I guess my worst decisions are the fact that I feel like I could fix people. there's times when someone's constantly not doing the right job, they're gonna change, they're gonna change, and we all think we're superheroes. So I think that's some of the, that's some of the worst decisions there that I've made.

Sean Weisbrot: So, kind of along that same. How do you anticipate problems? And I don't just mean personnel problems, I mean market shifts just in, in a, from a, a high level point of view.

Anthony Mongeluzo: No one has a crystal ball. I joke, I have one, but it's broken. however, just really by being aware, right? There might be certain things going on in the world, whether it's in your industry, politically, environmentally, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: And you might agree, disagree, but what you have to do is remain neutral and understand reality, right? Reality is not always what you think it is or what you want it to be. Reality is what it is, so one of the conversations I've been having with our AR team is our accounts receivable area. There's a recession coming down the line.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Right. you already have the stock markets going down. We're at our worst start in 52 years. Something's coming down the pike. So you, it's, it's almost like I'm a, I'm a big football fan and I love to play football. A little too old now, getting beat up out there. But when you're quarterbacking right, you have to have that sack clock.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Right. some of it's art, some of it's science, but it's really, it's really just, there's with social media and all the news feeds and everything else. You have to take time to read and you have to read all the perspectives, not just the ones that you agree with.

Sean Weisbrot: It's a really interesting point, and I want to pull on that a little bit more. So are you concerned that your account receivables will get worse because of what's coming?

Anthony Mongeluzo: So it's real, it's a real new world for us here. I'm concerned, but not as concerned as I would be. And the reason I say that is I was very concerned about our accounts receivable, when COVID started. Well, something very surprising happened, and this was even before the PPP.

Anthony Mongeluzo: People paid their bills more quickly. I almost feel like, at least for my particular business, we've shifted more to a utility where people now realize, oh, if I wanna work from home, I need my IT company. So we've moved up the list, but does that mean we're guaranteed that we're gonna get paid? No. So I just think, there's certain clients that you have historically that are always slow pay.

Anthony Mongeluzo: They're gonna be slower. You just don't wanna let yourself get put out there because at some point, you know if you're owed, if you owe me money, that's your problem. If you owe me a lot of money. That's my problem. Now, it's less your problem, which sounds kind of silly, but it is the truth.

Sean Weisbrot: Oh yeah, of course. I mean, I went through that with my dad's dental business. He had like 120,000 a month outstanding because of the way that they were handling insurance claims. They were paper mailing everything, and it would take two months to get the money back. And when I realized what was happening, I convinced the team to move on to a digital program and they were getting the money back in about seven to 10 days.

Sean Weisbrot: And so the receivables went down to 40,000 and they're like, holy crap, what do we do with all this money? So like, yeah, absolutely. So with that in mind then, how do you discover potential bottlenecks? Your business and how do you handle them?

Anthony Mongeluzo: So one of the things that's changed a lot from being a small business, with 10 or 20 people, going to where we're at now, I think every business owner, every CEO, has done every job from, the janitor to art, AP sales, marketing, and.

Anthony Mongeluzo: That gives you a feel, right When the business is small, you could see those bottlenecks because every customer has direct access to you. Everyone's gonna let you know what they're feeling. Now the way that we find bottlenecks is we have things that I was always opposed to meetings. I always felt meetings were a waste of time.

Anthony Mongeluzo: We have weekly meetings with different levels of leadership here and we ask the good, the bad, and the ugly. And when you start to see trends, right? a lot of times as people. We tend to react, right? We'd rather respond, but we tend to react, which is just quickly. So now with these meetings and other checks that we have in place, the bottlenecks are more discoverable because you have a lot of people looking at them.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So there's a lot of auditing, there's a lot of process review and when things get jammed up. obviously it's a bottleneck, so, and I can tell you you're always gonna fly bottlenecks. you fix one and then another one, another one occurs.

Sean Weisbrot: So that brings me to a really interesting question, which is, at the size you are now, what is your daily kind of routine like, what do you spend the most of your time on and. Which of the team members do you spend the most time communicating with, and how has that changed from beginning until now?

Anthony Mongeluzo: In the beginning, I was out doing technical calls and in the office, out of the office sales, I was doing the books. but now I probably communicate, realistically, with about five to seven people on a daily, weekly basis.

Anthony Mongeluzo: it's my Chief Operating Officer, Tracy, my director of it, Danny. And, I have a gentleman, well two gentlemen, Jake and Mark, who run our other offices along with another guy, Chris who runs our Red Bank office. and then, another person that runs our response team, Ryan, who I speak to quite a bit.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Other than that, I don't have a lot of daily interaction. one thing that I do love to do, and I do this, three, four times a day. I just walk the floor. I just walk around the building, say hi everyone, see what's going on. and a lot of times you could tell by the vibe, the tone, the looks on people's faces too, what's going on.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So it also gives me a little intel to say, Hey, is that team getting overwhelmed? or, Hey, they're having a lot of fun. We're doing something right. That's good. So yeah, so I mean, but it is tough. I joke just, just in our headquarters we have about 120 people, maybe 130. If you spend two minutes a day talking to everyone, it's over four hours.

Anthony Mongeluzo: you get nothing done. So my day to day really now is. It's still in sales. I quite unquote say I'm a mascot for the company. so definitely our strategic relationships, our partners, I'm spending time with them out in the field and, I really do try to engage as much as I can with our clients, and that's why I have the mobile office to tech tank.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So while I'm driving from location to location, I could work. So it's very helpful.

Sean Weisbrot: Have you ever thought about selling this business?

Anthony Mongeluzo: No. You get offers all day long. Who knows what's real, what's fake, but I mean, in our world. The offers come in, literally 10, 15 times a week, some weeks.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And, I, I couldn't imagine putting all this time, all this energy, all this effort into making something great and stopping before that goal. Right. I think until we're recognized. Leader, we didn't accomplish our goal.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And realistically, that will probably never happen because everyone says they're the biggest and the best. So, I just wanna keep growing it.

Sean Weisbrot: That brings me to something interesting. I normally ask people a little bit later on, which is, what is your concept of success now? I've spoken to people where they have a number, like when they're starting out, they go, I wanna make a million dollars, and then I'll be good.

Sean Weisbrot: And then I have people that go, I wanna have 200 employees. Right? So everyone kind of has their own idea. So what was I. Did you have a number when you first started out, or did you, like, what kind of a thing did you have that allowed you to know I have reached a level of success. And how has that changed?

Sean Weisbrot: Does that number, is it, if it's a number, does that number keep changing and kind of, what is that number? I. And all that.

Anthony Mongeluzo: That's a great question. Right. So, thank God I read a lot of Tony Robbins, a lot of other self-help and all this, so I've had a lot of success, right? Like I remember thinking, wow, when I hit $1 million in sales, there was gonna be fireworks.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I made it and what ended up happening was I was sitting at my desk on like a Friday night. It was like six, seven o'clock at the office. Nobody was there but me and I looked at QuickBooks and we were just over a million dollars. Oh, cool. Okay. I guess I'll go to the bar or something. there wasn't that magic moment, like I really expected that, that was graduation level, you know?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Then I thought, 5 million would be great. that didn't seem achievable. Right. it took me, took me three years to get to, a million, well, guess what? Two, two and a half years later. But 5 million, eh, that wasn't good enough anymore. So let's do 10, let's do 20. employee count.

Anthony Mongeluzo: 50 was. Mecca, like, oh wow, like if I get 50 people, then it went to a hundred, then it went to 200. And the reason why I alluded to Tony Robbins, one of the things that he put in his books about being happy is, and clearly I didn't listen to him, right. he said, imagine if you're playing basketball, the nets there, you set the goal.

Anthony Mongeluzo: You want to throw the basketball. the basketball on the net. Well, you shoot it, it's a perfect shot. Well then guess what? Someone takes a net and moves it back. That's what a lot of business owners and people do to themselves, and that's honestly where I'm still at. So I don't, I don't really know the definition of success.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'll define my next goal. I'll probably be happy for a day or two after we hit it, and then it's gonna be back to the drawing board. And I think a lot of good entrepreneurs are like that. I don't think, I don't think I'm unique in that sense because a lot of people I know are very driven. Once they hit the goal, what's next?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Right? Grow or die. So I, I, I think that mentality, really sticks with me. one thing I would say, and I define success, is when I get that note from the client that says, oh, your guys saved our business, or, we're operating so much better things to you. Or the note from the team member when they buy their new house or have their first child and how influential the company was in their life.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Those are successes at staying. you don't forget those. So I think for me it's more that element right now. But obviously, a passion to grow. I mean, our next goal is 30 million.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I generally ask that question because I want the people that are gonna be listening to understand, where they are and where you are is very different.

Sean Weisbrot: And so I want them to understand from people who are, who have seen a level of success that they might aspire to, like. So that kind of concept doesn't really change. It just kind of grows with you. And so,

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah, I guess so. One thing I would add to that though, and this is advice that I gave myself in my thirties, and this is for, any, any entrepreneur, anyone growing, anyone looking to take that next step, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Enjoy the ride. Enjoy. I did an interview and I didn't realize I said this. My friend had a magazine put me on the front cover and it was about growth and doing great things in a community. And one of the quotes that I said was, I said, I wish I enjoyed the ride more. I wish I knew that everything would be okay.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Looking back, I could have had a little bit more fun. especially in my twenties because I took everything really seriously and I still do. But, just I guess time in the saddle experience. So the best advice to myself was knowing that if I did the right thing, worked hard, I know everything's gonna be okay.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So that advice is definitely helping me now, in my early to, early to mid thirties and now early forties. So it's definitely helped me. Yeah. Balance a little better.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I learned early on that when you get sick, as I did, I mean, I can't really call it sick, but because of my concussion, it really messed up my health, for a while.

Sean Weisbrot: That, like your health, has to be more important than money. Like me, I learned that at 27 and. I spend most of my time traveling, like I, I may have mentioned by email before we arrange this, like I spent three weeks in Greece and then two weeks in Slovenia, and then a month in Spain, and now I'm in Portugal and I'm, I'm moving to Portugal actually.

Sean Weisbrot: So for me, I would rather work less and earn less if it means I have more time to live my life the way I want. Because so many people that I've met, a lot of them older, they have one single regret. That's that they didn't travel more, they didn't enjoy their life more. I was like, well, I don't wanna be like that.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't wanna be old and unable to move and do these things and be like, oh, I wish I traveled more. Like I've been to 35 countries mostly by myself. I've spent a majority of my adult life outside of America living different things. I've, I've lived more than most people I've ever met. And if I were to die tomorrow, I would go.

Sean Weisbrot: I had a pretty good life. And, and that's, that's what's important for me.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot of traveling. You mentioned health too. I mean, I look back to pictures when I was 36, 37, and you won't realize that like at least I didn't, people that I talked to back at a couple pictures, I was heavy.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And one of the other big changes that I made was, I make time for the gym. So I meet my trainer, I'm at the gym six 30 in the morning, three days a week, and then I go on Saturdays and. Just that, that, that energy you get and that feeling from, being in, being in better shape and that energy from working out and things like that, your health, if you don't have your health, if you feel like crap, your, your product's gonna be crap.

Anthony Mongeluzo: your mind's gonna drift. So, yeah. Don't, don't forget your health either.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I don't, I don't remember exactly when our interview was, but from February, 2021. Until now, I've lost 50 pounds.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Holy. That's three, that's three big bowling balls you were carrying around, so that's amazing.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, and I feel like I'm in my twenties again.

Sean Weisbrot: Oh, your knees are saying thank you. Absolutely. Y'all. I mean, I was at a point where when I wanted to put my shoes on and I was bending over, I couldn't breathe. It wasn't something that I would want anyone to ever experience. It was horrific. So. Thankfully my divorce put me on the path to taking better care of myself.

Sean Weisbrot: But, so what you just talked about gives me something interesting I want to ask about, which is, so you go to the gym, you're, you're trying to focus on your health. Clearly there are wins that are happening here in this process. So. How do you celebrate a win? And have you ever experienced kind of falling off the wagon on this journey of your health or, or growth of the company that would allow you to experience losses and kind of how do you celebrate wins and handle losses?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Obviously the losses hurt a lot more than the wins. For some reason, the, the sting and the, the. The pain of losing lasts a lot longer. The win, it's like, yes, you got it. You get the dopamine and that's over. but little simple ways, right? you have, you have a nice win.

Anthony Mongeluzo: maybe, maybe it's an extra happy hour, right? Maybe it's, I'm just gonna go at five o'clock somewhere by myself for an hour and a half. And remember, I'm not condoning drinking and driving. I have a tech tank. Someone drives it for me, so I'm not driving. Yeah, just, sometimes a little happy hour by yourself.

Anthony Mongeluzo: sometimes as silly as it sounds, right, with two kids and everything else, you don't get a lot of free time. Hey hun, listen, I'm gonna go downstairs and just veg out and play a video game. stuff that you used to do all the time, but you just can't when there's other responsibilities.

Anthony Mongeluzo: losses on the other hand, leads to a lot of pen and paper, and a lot of phone calls if other people are involved. Text messaging, phone. Figuring out accepting the loss, right? The most important thing you have to do is accept the loss. If you lose, you can't blame anyone. Or it's because of this or because of that.

Anthony Mongeluzo: 'cause guess what? Someone else did something that you didn't do. But really trying to dissect that loss. and, and that's part of, I think, the stinging process. so that's how I handle losses. Just why did it happen? What caused it, what areas were under my control, right? So for instance, if we, if we lose a big job, that's maybe a ransomware remediation because all the flights got canceled, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah. I'm pissed off. But is there anything else I could have done? Could I've chartered a private plane? Would that have made sense? So, dissecting everything to see, and maybe the answer's no, you couldn't. So it's like, okay, well we did the best we could. It sucks. We lost. The other way is, oh, well, did you not book the flight early enough?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Did you not check the other airline? So it's, it's a figure, it's figuring out why. one of the things I say to all our team members here, if they screw up, I don't care how big it is, right? as long as they're not violating any laws, the first time something goes wrong, it's called a learning experience here.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Now, if you do the same thing again, then you're an idiot. I can't help you. Right? Gotta learn from your mistake.

Sean Weisbrot: So, at what revenue? range. Do you start to consider buying a private jet? In order to move your people around?

Anthony Mongeluzo: God, I don't, that, that's a great question. I don't even know, because I couldn't imagine what those things cost.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I mean, every once in a while, if you flip around on those apps and things like that, just a, just a flight from Jersey to Florida is like 10 to 12 grand a pop. so I couldn't even, I think you'd have to get to at least a hundred million. And it also depends on what kind of revenue, because our revenue gets skewed sometimes because there's labor revenue.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Then there's hardware revenue. Well, I could, I could move 200 grand in hardware and maybe make $3,000. So, I could, I could pound my chest like, oh yeah, we did $200,000 in sales. But at the end of the day, it just made my number bigger. I score some points with Dell and I get some credit card points, but it's not necessarily a revenue producer.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It's more of a, it's more of a chess flex.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I actually interviewed a guy, who runs a group of companies, and he's from the country of Georgia, and they're all in aviation. And he has an app. So he has several private planes that he charters, but he also has a team that helps him to fill the demand.

Sean Weisbrot: And they mostly work around Europe, but he also has been developing an app that will allow them to kind of automate this process by making it so that the team doesn't have to do those calls and all that. I think they did like 4 million in the, in revenue in the first like year or something, just like filling planes.

Sean Weisbrot: So, yeah, we did the whole interview about how society is changing. Again, we mostly focused on Europe because that's his market. But we were talking about how, more people are making more in the millions and how they can afford these flights. And he gave an example of like, oh, let's say you're, living in Barcelona and there's an opera in Paris that you wanna attend.

Sean Weisbrot: You just, call us. You hop on a plane, you're there in an hour and a half. You don't have to go through. Customs or anything like that. And you're just in and out and you go for the opera and you come back and, maybe you spend seven grand for like the flights, but like, you just, you go on a date or you meet a friend or whatever.

Sean Weisbrot: And I was like, I don't think like that. It's like, it was hard for me to imagine.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It's like, yeah, I'm just taking, I'm taking the bus down the street, you know?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. Well Europe is, it's very different. I mean, you could take a flight and it's like an hour between, like Madrid and London. Like, it's just so easy to move around different countries. So it's a different concept for them. For sure. So obviously you've been through a lot in running this company. I'm curious, how have you had to change yourself in order to stay relevant?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Wow, that's a, that's another good one. it's, I've definitely, I've definitely evolved more than probably most.

Anthony Mongeluzo: If you really think about it, I was a college kid when I started this thing. my COO at the time, she was a client. I was used to her, her kids were younger. I went to their house and the first time I had so much energy and I was just so like all over the place like. She actually thought I was on drugs because like, who, who is this guy?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Like, blurted out whatever I wanted. I just, I was crazy and I like, in this interview, I'd be scratching my head and going just like everything was, so I really, I had to evolve, from a technician. To somewhat of a businessman slash leader, then to a real leader, and then to really grow the business really had to turn into a marketer and a TV personality.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And everyone thought I was a joke in like 2006 or 2007. I used to tell people that I was gonna make it to Hollywood. I was gonna make it sexy, right? Everyone thinks all these guys are a bunch of geeks and all this. Like, I'm gonna make it fun. And I think by going out there, I mean one of our differentiators as a business and you know companies are catching on now, but it's too late 'cause we're already moving on, is all the stuff I did at like the local chambers and things like that.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Everyone knew who I was and because I made friends first, when then people had a problem because I was out there every day. I was, and I still am probably the most approachable CEO at the level we are. I'm still going out three, four nights a week, so I'm a pretty easy man to find. And, I think that gives people comfort if they're working with us because it's like, okay, I could go talk to Anthony on Tuesday night at this event, or Wednesday night at this event.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Oh, he's gonna be at this golf outing. They sponsored. So I think people feel more comfortable doing business with us, because of that evolution. Right. And look, the other thing is too. We've been here so long, right? I've been doing this business for over half my life. So I think that gives folks that work with us a feeling of stability.

Anthony Mongeluzo: We're not going anywhere. So I think it's all those things, but they definitely evolved from being a geek to more of a TV personality and business leader and all those little micro steps on the way. definitely, definitely getting outta the field. 100% not being a tech, you know? And, and then, and then look, inside the office, right.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Unlike some of our accounting functions, I felt nobody could do them better than me. Right. And finally I started to step back and give to other people. And yeah, they couldn't do it better than me. They could do it way better than me. so I think, I think as a business owner in some ways, and this isn't a bad thing 'cause you should have pride, it's, it's also that narcissism, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: You just, no one's better than me at this because I built this. And I think part of being able to let that go is an evolutionary process because then you could worry, worry about getting good at other things, getting good at process, getting good at business development.

Anthony Mongeluzo: and that's gonna be different for everyone. it's finding your superpower. And,but a superpower is definitely delegating tasks that you just don't need to do.

Sean Weisbrot: I think I learned really early on that my superpower was being a generalist where I can basically learn anything I need and I can build something from that very quickly.

Sean Weisbrot: But it breaks very fast, and that's when I need to hire someone to come and like, make it something sustainable. so it's good for me because I'm a self-starter. I'm a self learner. I can get there fast, but it also breaks fast, which is good because it forces me to go, okay, well this is the best I can do in a short amount of time.

Sean Weisbrot: Now I have a basic understanding of what I need someone else to do. Now I can just hire them to go and do it.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And I think that's a great skillset. I mean, one of the things that really helps me with PCS and understanding the business here, which I don't necessarily have with the other companies I invested in, I. I could truly say I've done every job here at PCS, whether it's been for six months, a month, a week, where at least I have some level of understanding. I invested in a software development company and I'm really great at helping the connected dots with them in the community and knowing when our client has a need for that software.

Anthony Mongeluzo: But when it comes to delivery, the business model, I don't know anything about that because. I have written, I wrote, maybe a hundred lines of code in college in my c plus plus class. that was, that was really it. I don't understand development styles or, or even what it takes, I'm more like an end user.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Oh, just put the button there. It's just a button. Right? Not 10,000 lines of code behind that button. so I just can't help as much. I think your side of being a generalist is really, really good.

Sean Weisbrot: I was tech, tech inclined. I. But I never really cared for it. Like I was involved in the hardware and networking in high school.

Sean Weisbrot: I had a high school of 1400 computers and my brother was involved in a special elite-like networking group that was only for juniors and seniors in high school. So like you had to go through some of the coding classes and get to know the coding teacher who also ran the networking group. 'cause like he was responsible for managing all these computers and he couldn't do it all himself. So he got students to do it for him for free. They got experience. So my brother convinced the teacher that I had experience, like my brother had taught me virtual basics. So he got me out of the VB class and into a c plus plus class.

Sean Weisbrot: I had never done vb, I'd never done c plus plus. I basically copied all of the c plus plus code from like my neighbors and I convinced him on my personality. So he put me into the networking club. And so I got to spend my junior and senior years, the first hour and a half of my day going around fixing the computers.

Sean Weisbrot: And I could do that. I could, We had to go, like we would ghost the computers. And so I was ghosting all that. We upgraded the computers like once, like the whole school got writing. Like I have a lot of that experience, but I never liked to code. So I've always had a love-hate relationship with tech.

Sean Weisbrot: I understand it, but I choose to kind of keep it at arm's length in a way. I've always kind of preferred the people's side and the psychology of how things happen and why they happen, and I think that's, that curiosity has allowed me to learn the skill of learning, which made me, which allowed me to become a generalist.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Computers are one thing, for the most part, unless it's chips fraud, they're logical, right? So typically if you follow a process, it's gonna work. Working on networks, working on computers, I think gives you good troubleshooting. Ironically, you said ghosting. One of the funniest things is that we. It had to be nine years ago.

Anthony Mongeluzo: one of our technicians, we, do best contests for Halloween. He blew up a box of Norton Ghost and basically cut his arms out through it and put his head, so he was dressed as a ghost. I said, I thought that was pretty witty. So he brought back a good memory there.

Sean Weisbrot: It seemed to bring out memories. I was with a guy last night. I met who. Like I, he used to go to a bakery in Portugal with his grandmother after school, and they would eat this, likea specific kind of a treat. It's like this coconut, pyramid that's like turned yellow. And I told him yesterday like, oh, I went to this cafe and like I had this thing.

Sean Weisbrot: And he was like, oh my God. Like I used to eat those every day with my grandma. Like I haven't had them in years. Like I thought, as I'm traveling I, and talking with people, I just seem to bring up memories from people in a good way.

Anthony Mongeluzo: You get a lot of experience with all the travel. I mean, that's, like I said earlier, you live, you lived a couple lives, so that's pretty cool.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. So you've, you've kind of touched on how you've changed yourself. I'm curious, what's the most important change you've had to make in the business so that it remains relevant?

Anthony Mongeluzo: The most important change that I made to the business was pulling myself out of a lot of operational roles. again, that delegation, that trusting people, there's definitely tweaks along the way.

Anthony Mongeluzo: 12 years ago we switched our software system to something more robust that if we didn't have that, the business probably, I don't say would've failed, but it would've really struggled. I. but I think the biggest part of the business was separating Anthony Monzo from PCS, while that separation will never be full, because I'll always identify with the business and things of that nature.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I guess the biggest change was kind of, you know. Handing the baby over to someone else and saying, Hey, you could have a turn. And a lot of our best ideas and our best innovations came from in-house. So I think that's the biggest and best change, just letting myself get out of the way.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, that's important. I like to ask that question as well because I want people to understand. I talk to a lot of people that have just started a business. They're maybe doing five, 10,000 a month. They're hitting that point where they could probably go a little bit more before they hit a ceiling in their own ability and time where I'm trying to convince them, you need to start building a team or else you're never gonna grow past this.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm like, do you wanna be a freelancer or do you wanna be a business owner? And so. I asked that question because it's really important for people to understand, like, get out of your own head, get out of your own ass. Hire people.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah, I agree. I mean, fortunately, I had an insane work ethic, or I would've probably hit that sailing, like I could just go and go and go.

Anthony Mongeluzo: but now having a family, two daughters, things like that, I don't think, I don't think I could have done what I did, if I didn't, if I didn't really, have children a little bit later. I didn't, I didn't have my first toes, basically almost 35 years old. I. and my life would've been completely different because I wouldn't have been able to take those risks and do those different things, but I'm sure I definitely created ceilings at some point where you don't even know it, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'm sure there's things that I missed out on. And opportunities, or ideas and, you can't look back and worry about it now, but you just have to realize the fact that other people can contribute a lot and, and do a lot, in many ways, a lot better than you. So. that's, that's the biggest thing I think, like you said, just avoid, avoid that ceiling.

Anthony Mongeluzo: We all, we all have a plateau. We all max out at some point.

Sean Weisbrot: How does having kids change your business or change you in terms of how you do business?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Like before it was like, okay, if I work 14 hours, my wife's home, she'll be fine. She'll see me, we talk, everything's good. We got the weekend.

Anthony Mongeluzo: With kids, you realize a couple things. one, now that time becomes ultra valuable because there's gonna be kids once, right? You're not gonna get the chance to experience two again, or three, or four or five.

Anthony Mongeluzo: The second thing is they need you. They want you in their lives. So for me, the biggest thing was how do I balance my life and still work the same amount of hours?

Anthony Mongeluzo: While also still being a family man. So for me, I'm a bit lucky in a sense where my daughters go to bed at seven o'clock at night during the school year. They wake up at 7:00 AM right now. Summertime, they're outta school. They go to bed at 7:00 PM and they get up at 8:00 AM So what I'll do is, if I'm working late or doing different things, I'll, instead of having a dinner at six 30, I might tell a business associate, Hey, I'll meet you at eight 30.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Like, why so late? I'm a kid. So go home, do the dinner thing with them. So I'm still working the same amount of hours and having the same amount of productivity. But I'm shifting on how I do things. So also if I know that, I'm gonna have a late night where I'm not gonna tuck them in, guess what? Maybe I'll start at nine 30 'cause I'm gonna have breakfast with them and wake them up in the morning. so it's really just more making that time and understanding what time's the most important and that is your family time. And again, that also leads to delegation and other things because maybe there's some tasks that were once a high priority on my list, maybe are a little bit lower.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So now I could then say, okay, well how can I get this, this and this off my plate to free up that time? That does two things. One, that lightens my load, but two, it gives someone else else a chance to elevate, which is also great.

Sean Weisbrot: For sure. Makes sense. I can't imagine having a kid, like I was, I was talking to a friend, he just had a second kid. I'm like, I struggle to take care of myself all of the time. Like, I don't know how the hell you can take care of a wife and two girls, two little kids, like. I couldn't

Anthony Mongeluzo: You, you won't be hitting 35 countries. I could tell you that won't be a five.

Sean Weisbrot: I would like to meet someone that I could take with me wherever I go. But hopefully they have their own career, so they're not relying on me. You know?

Anthony Mongeluzo: I would just think if you're traveling so much, like schooling with the kids and things like that would probably, definitely be a consideration.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, I think at some point we have to settle down a little bit. What was your first thought of the day? First thought in the day? Hmm. What gets you out of bed in the morning? I guess, maybe they're two different questions.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Guess they are kind of two different questions because probably my first thought of the day. Start with my last thought of the night, right.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Before I go to bed, I make a task list. I look at my calendar and say, okay, what do I have to get done? So typically my first thought of the day is personal, to be honest.

Anthony Mongeluzo: because I'm working out Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and then Tuesday and Thursday the first thing I do is get a medical massage.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So, typically, other than, looking at your emails and doing the stuff while you're eating breakfast, really the first thought is okay, you know. What's today? Leg day Aren? What are we gonna do? While that workout is going on, I have a trainer. A lot of times I'm able to formulate, okay, well what's that, what's going on now?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Because I'm not the best morning person. Like, I'm probably one of the most friendly morning people, but the brain's kind of like half turned on. So it takes me a little bit to get there. So I think that's why it's good for me to have the gym and the other stuff because then by the time that's all done, man, I'm, I'm juiced up and ready to go.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And, typically, again, my, if, if you say my first business thought, it's always about growth. Every day. I asked Danny, our director, Hey, who do we hire? What are we doing? Does it add up? What's going on? So it's always that, what's next mentality.

Sean Weisbrot: When do you decide to tackle the hardest thing?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah, so I always, I always try to tackle the hardest thing first. I'm sure there's, emergencies or everything else in every business. Sometimes that's a little tough. Because if you have people at your door, other things are going on. So I'd like to think that I tackle the most important thing first and then the hardest thing.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Sometimes it's one and the same. Not always, but you definitely have to have some flexibility in what you're doing. because if you're too rigid, I think you can mess things up.

Sean Weisbrot: How do you handle distractions? So like, for example, I've got 10 different chat apps. I hate looking at them, but like I've got people messaging me. Sometimes it's for work, sometimes it's personal. How do you handle that?

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'm pretty bad, right? So I'm not diagnosed, but I always said that I have a DD. My distraction is more my phone between the text messages and the emails coming in all day. essentially what I do is.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'll just focus on whatever I need to for a specific period of time. So for instance, right now I probably have a hundred emails in my inbox when this podcast is done. I am not getting up from my desk unless there's an absolute fire. Until everything urgents answers, and I've less than 25 emails. So basically, I try to, I just try to take bites outta different things at certain times.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So it's like, okay, well I got through these emails. Okay, well now I got six text messages. Let's go through those. So I really just try to focus on one thing at a time as I'm hopping through. Now granted, that being said, as soon as this is over, someone could be at my door and say, Hey, this international company got hit by a virus, and we're getting a call to fix them.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Well, guess what? We're gonna handle that. So it's really, and part of it is, part of it's also skimming, right? if you go through your emails, you could say, okay, well, there's probably five or six of these that have the potential to be important. Let me look at those. I'll worry about the other stuff later.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So it's also finding your own groove.

Sean Weisbrot: You just gave me an idea for a business, well, I assume a lot of people, do you have an, an executive assistant? Wouldn't it be great if they could skim through those emails and mark them which ones are the most urgent? And like there's a tag that's like, this is urgent, this is less urgent.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I wish. So there's some smart mail programs. I hear the new outlook. I. which I haven't used yet, does a great job at that. The problem for me is, even though I probably have like 12 different LLCs and eight different email addresses, realistically 99% of my email comes through my pc s email.

Anthony Mongeluzo: There's a lot of confidential things that go through there that either I'm under NDA or maybe it's just some stuff from personal nature. my wife and I communicate via that email, so I won't be comfortable opening that up. But I think that's a great idea. For instance, if you, it's almost like carrying two cell phones, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: If I had like my private Anthony PCs account where all that confidential stuff goes and then I had just my generalist, that would definitely work. And I know a lot of my friends have their assistance to do that for them. And for me, I just have. Too much other stuff where I would, violate other people's trust or literally legal agreements where I couldn't.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So who do you look up to for advice? God, a lot of different people. So, you know what I try to do is, people look at, people, rate people based on their job title or how much money they make and all that. And I think that's all bs right? So what I, I look to so many different people for advice, depending on what they're experts in.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So, for instance, my attorney, obviously he's my mecca for anything legal or anything that I want to do there. my trainer, right? I'm always asking him for advice. We work out together four days a week. So one of the things I'm blessed with, and this is, this is one of the things that I sought out over time.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I wanna know who's the best at everything, right? And when I say everything, one person's good at this and that, because then I'll have this big pool of people that I could talk to. Guess what? Sometimes it's the most uneducated person on the planet that just has a ton of life experience.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So I don't really care about degrees, I don't really care about certification. I really care about the results that people produce in the areas that they focus on. So I definitely have a lot of different mentors.

Sean Weisbrot: So outside of those people, what are your favorite resources for learning books?

Anthony Mongeluzo: I do a lot of reading, a lot of self-help books. I listen to a lot of audibles. I go through a lot of different coaching, right? even personally, right? I have my gym coach, my piano coach, and a stretching coach. So just a lot of different things.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So, I'm looking at a lot of different sources. I'm not, I'm not a big YouTuber, in terms of looking at online videos for help. although that does help me with some small tasks if I have a little hobby or trying to do something. but I would say, I would say reading. Is probably my number one go-to.

Sean Weisbrot: So then what are you currently learning?

Anthony Mongeluzo: So I'm reading this book. The guy's name is Tim Grover. He was Michael Jordan's coach and Kobe Bryant's coach. His book is called Winning.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It's about understanding the psychology of winning and the way that he wrote this book. It defined winning and competition. Exactly how I thought about it in my brain, but could never verbally express it. So I learned a lot about that type of psychology. the other thing, I've been actually doing a lot more advanced business balance sheets and I'm trying to learn more about real estate when it comes to NOI and cap rates and things like that.

Anthony Mongeluzo: because real estate just fascinates me. So I'm talking to some folks trying to learn, the different cap rates for the different types of properties, whether it's apartment complexes, manufacturing, and different techniques there.I think that's a really good lifelong skill.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And then the other skill that I'll, I'll say learning, I dunno how good I'm doing, is golfing. That's a frustrating game.

Sean Weisbrot: I would normally wanna ask about the real estate, but I know that that's a conversation on its own. As for golf, I will say I quite like it. I never thought I would.

Sean Weisbrot: And I got introduced to it in China.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Oh wow.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, of all places.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I got introduced to it through COVID, so it's the only way to meet people.

Sean Weisbrot: So I, I started learning about it maybe eight, nine years ago, and I only did it a few times. The only reason I stopped was because, like, I had a friend who knew a coach at a private place, and it was like.

Sean Weisbrot: Dunno, a thousand dollars a year to be a member. And at the time I was broke still. And so I was like, I can't afford this. So I got a few lessons for free and then I was like, okay, well, but it turned out I was, I was decent at it. And then I. Moved to Vietnam and I had an Australian friend. I have an Australian friend, and he had a set of clubs, and so he would be like, Hey, let's go to the driving range.

Sean Weisbrot: It's like, a mile from where we were living and it was only like $10 to hit a hundred balls. I was like, all right, fair enough. So we'd, we'd go once a week and we'd play and like. Very quickly, he taught me how to go from like 50 yards to 180 yards on average with a driver. Oh, that's great. And it's been a while, obviously, because I don't know of any golf ranges in Portugal or anywhere else in Europe.

Sean Weisbrot: I have to look for them. But, even in America, there was a driving range, like right next to my parents' house, so I'd go there once in a while. But yeah, I, I've never actually played 18 holes, like I've done mini golf, but I've never done 18 holes. Yeah. Like. And so it's very, very different. But on the driving side, I quite enjoy it.

Sean Weisbrot: It's very peaceful, just like whacking a ball as hard as you can.

Anthony Mongeluzo: my, my biggest thing is I just gotta get lessons again. I took lessons a little while ago. It lapsed, COVID, quote unquote, and things got really busy.

Anthony Mongeluzo: but I just got a name sent to me actually yesterday, so I'll be reaching out to try to schedule now again, that'll be one of those things, hopefully I could meet the, individual, the, the country club for me.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Five minutes from my house so I could tuck my kids in at seven and be there by seven 30 comfortably. So maybe, in the summertime at least when it's nice out still, seven 30 to eight 30. And, hopefully, hopefully after a couple months, at least be respectable. I'm respectable for about four, four or five holes outta 18, and then we go downhill from there.

Sean Weisbrot: Fair enough. Now you were also talking about playing video games. I just wanted to kindly mention to you, I don't know if you have a Meta Quest two, any sort of VR device, HTC vive. Okay. Well, there's a game called Walkabout. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's like mini golf. Golf vr, which is really top quality.

Sean Weisbrot: I've never played a better VR game. but there's other ones like Golf Plus, again, I'm not sure if they're on the Vive. I imagine they are like, those are more real

Anthony Mongeluzo: v golf games. Yeah, I have a great mini golf course. it's called v it's Pinelands VR or something on the Vive. And Jake, who runs Delaware for us, he has the vibe as well.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And, we could actually play mini golf together. And the experience is real. It's very realistic. I mean, all this VR stuff, to me it's almost a little too realistic. I remember the first time I got into a boxing game and one of the guys was punching at me. I had to take off my headset. I'm like, it's just too real.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Those guys beat me up. So the roller coasters are good too, on vr.

Sean Weisbrot: I can't, those make me nauseous. The other games don't. But yeah, that one bothers me.

Anthony Mongeluzo: My friend was at my house just sitting on the floor with a headset on. And you can start to see the sweat coming. I'm like, Dr. Dr, take it off. You're good. You're good. Just take it off.

Sean Weisbrot: So I'm curious, what's the most important thing you've learned in our life?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Defeat is only temporary. Right? You never lose the battle until you quit. So I see so many people that quit. They get frustrated and just say, I'm done. And they throw up their handsevery year. really just never quit is probably the most important life lesson because.

Anthony Mongeluzo: As long as you're in the game, there's a shot to win.